The Funday Pawpet Show is the Internet's longest runninginteractive live weekly puppet show. The show started netcasting in November of 1999, and hit its 500th episode on April 3rd 2011. The show runs four hours live from 6pm to 10pm Eastern Time Sunday Nights originating from the Orlando, Florida area. Episodes are downloadable only for one week due to music use rights. The audience interacts with the proformers via IRC channel and artwork sent in to the show through the show's website. Being based in Orlando, the show is a favorite of many Disney Imagineers, and elements of the show have found their way into some recent productions. For those not familiar with the show, here is an article written by one of the main proformers to mark "A Decade of Silliness". Basicly the show is Monty Python meets the Muppets.
The show provides examples of:
Academy Awards: Around the time of the Oscar® Awards, the Pawpets sometimes offer The Arthur® Awards; named after cast member Arthur Breaunshweiger; and featuring categories such as "Best Song They Don't Play Anymore".
Affectionate Parody: In one memorable episode, the movie Being John Malkovich is parodied as one by one each cast member discovers a mysterious doorway in back of the stage that transforms them into ferrets.
Amusement Park: Several of the cast members work at one, and Mutt in particular is a big fan of roller coasters.
Black Comedy: Though they tend to refrain from this (one show ended abruptly when a guest crossed the rating line hard), a very literal example emerged in one situation where Blitz tires of the noise and apparently beats the constantly shrieking baby fox puppetTantrum to death with a suspicious vibrating implement. Every bit as inappropriate yet hilarious as it sounds.
Brain Bleach: Anything Fred Bedderhead sends to the show and/or Yappy emails to Mutt.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Quote 24◊. The first two items were mentioned just before the quote in a discussion about chickens in live theatre.
Arthur "That's pretty spactacular!", "I'm Reeeeeeeee Calllllllllin!", "Multiboobage", "Look into my eye!"
Bitch Voop "Raaaaaaaaaaasvaaaaaaaaaaaar!"
Blitz "I don't even know what that is!" (Although this is actually more a Mutt catchphrase ABOUT Blitz), "Oooohhhhh!", "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" (at weird times like a guy Darwining down an elevator), "Oh, I know this song! It's in Rock Band!".
Character Tics: Several. Derp the gator has his 'jazz hands,' Hugh rolls back and forth going 'flipper flipper flipper' as well as beebling, and Ezra scoots around on his back feetfirst while making the above mentioned 'wiki wiki wiki' noise.
Disney Theme Parks: Many of the cast work for the Mouse. Justified in that the show takes place in Orlando.
Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Blitz misses a lot of the instances of snark, sarcasm, and other such things from the cast, especially from Poink.
Poink: "Get up on screen or I will taser you."
Blitz: "You have a taser?" (Please note they're sitting next to each other beneath the stage and can see each other's hands.)
Dog Walks You: Bandit frequently tries to herd the cast members and guests.
Dolly Parton: On the 11/28/10 episode Mutt and Yappy showed footage of their vacation to Dollywood.
Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: Poink often brings up situations he dubs "Ass Beating Hours," where someone, most commonly his grandmother, would catch him misbehaving in some form or fashion and administer corporal punishment...creatively. Very creatively. He's admitted to being spanked with, among other things, a douche bag, a Stretch Armstrong toy, a piece of Hot Wheels track (with the pins exposed), and The Six Million Dollar Man. He admits he often deserves them though, having been a self-admitted hellraiser in his youth.
Eek, a Mouse!!: Often Florida wildlife will invade the live webcast, leading Ezra to envoke this trope, while Mutt commands the show's border collie to "Eat it, Bandit! Eat it eat it eat it!"
Everythings Smellier With Skunks: Viewer Garrison, having been a part of the audience all the way back to episode 6, over the years originated many things that are now Pawpet staples such as the Art Jam (suggested back when Yappy originally rejected it as undoable as it would flood the mail server), the Arthur Awards, Bandit Cam, J.R. The Hutt, and the Sgt Yappy picture celebrating the show's first 100 episodes.
Follow the Leader: The show has inspired many internet shows and puppet groups around the world including Pawpet West, Pawpet Rocky Mountain, Pawpet Scotland and Oh! Pawpets!, which fills in for Funday on the few weeks the show isn't broadcast live.
Father Of The Pride: The 2004 preview was shown the week it premired on the NBC Olympics broadcast to much rejoicing...as well as Rasvar's accurate prediction that it would fail to find a mainstream audience.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Well, technicly, there is no radar as the FCC doesn't (yet) goven internet shows. However the show likes to keep it to a PG-13 level, although somethings do get through from time to time.
Gone Horribly Wrong: Simba is challanged to eat an entire pack of Listerine breath strips.
Halloween Episode: Once a Season the show celebrates on the Sunday before the 31st. One year when Halloween fell on a Sunday, Yappy set up outside cameras to catch the reactions of Trick or Treaters who encountered screams, fog .... and a giant dog mascot upon ringing the bell.
Happy Birthday To You: "This is your birthday song, it isn't very long." (Or the even shorter version "Birthday song, very long")
Ezra: (Trying to determan Tantrum's sex) Tantrum, what's between your legs?
Tantrum: All I see is an arm between my legs!
Midi: One year during the annual Telethon Yappy played only Midi files to illustrate what the show would be like without the paid for music licence.
Missing Episode: On the evening of 9/11, the cast quickly assembled to put together an impromtu netcast to help calm people down and reassure them. This is the only episode to never have its file be put up for download.
Having transfered the early shows's VCR master tapes to DVD storage, Yappy has found that some of these too have started to deteriorate in quality.
Once a Season: the show holds a telethon as well as having Christmas, Chistmas in July, Easter, Holloween, and 4th of July/Yappy's Birthday episodes.
The Other Darrin: Blitz has been called 'The New Eaglebeagle' by many people, including himself.
Oven Logic: Herbie once recounted how he tried to bake brownies, substituting more water for the eggs, "After all, eggs are water, right?" Leading Shak to exclaim "Eggs Aren't Water!" which became a semi Catch Phrase for the shark.
Parrot Exposition: Blitz often ends up doing this thanks to his tendency to ask about things that are assumed to be common knowledge.
Peanuts: The show got the term "Pawpet" from the little puppet shows that Snoopy would give from atop his doghouse from time to time (generally in Sunday strips).
Pizza Boy Special Delivery: Subverted when the cast interviewed Jeff the Pizza Guy. When asked if he is ever greeted at the door by naked women, Jeff said he has in the past (there is a nudest colony on his route), but they are generally not the women you'd want to live this trope out with.
Road Apples: Early episodes featured a green bean puppet whose dark green color came across on the Real Player screen as black, making the puppet look like a Mr HankyExpy
Second Life: Most of the cast have/had accounts with the service, a section of Second Life is a fan created Pawpet Theatre where a groups can gather and watch the show streamed within the game.
Self-Deprecation: "Hi, I'm ________, and you're wasting your time watching the Funday Pawpet Show!".
Species Surname: •Both followed (Poink T. Ferret, Java Frog, Hump T. Camel, Hugh Manatee, Temp Ferret) and averted (Mutt Barker - illegitimate son of Bob, Arthur Bronswagger, Jimmy Noneck, Shak, Ezra Shawartz, Crappy Shawartz). One of the newest characters, Gof, has a name that stands for Gray Old Fox.
Talking to Himself: Scott does so many characters, he is often called upon to carry on a conversation between two of them. Also JR has Poink and Huge Manatee frequently talk to each other.
Tastes Like Diabetes: At one point, the cast got annoyed with a handfull of channel dwellers who kept complaining that the show was getting too raunchy. In response they split one episode into two parts - First half was The Squeaky Clean Pawpet & Friends Show which fit this trope, followed immediatly by The Poink Show which allowed the naughty weasel to crank the raunch Up to Eleven.
TRON: Tron Guy Jay Maynard has previously been an in-studio guest as well as more recently a call-in on the Dec 19th 2010 episode to give his reactions to TRON: Legacy, which opened that week.
Trout Fishing In America: Many of the twosome's songs became standards in the early years of the show (as well as the earlier Give Kids The World live shows) including "Proper Cup of Coffee" and "Throw it Out the Window." Character Ezra was named after Ezra Idlet, and Ezra and Keith appeared in a FPS opening spot.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Given the reuse of the same models of puppets for different characters, including different genders, you can never be quite sure what you're getting when certain puppets are pulled out. Very weirdly done with Dookie/Crapalina, a sheepdog puppet which is somehow both male and female at differing times...because Crapalina is really a post op Dookie. Even stranger still when you consider that Dookie keeps showing back up anyway.
Happened again with Tantrum, who was revealed to be a girl.
Blitz: Wait, that's a girl?!
Visual Pun: Bawk, a chicken puppet who is larger than most of the other puppets in the cast. An entirely intentional example.
. Being based in Orlando, the show is a favorite of many Disney Imagineers, and elements of the show have found their way into some recent productions. For those not familiar with the show, here
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